My eye twitch is back. That nagging flutter of my left outer eyelid last reared its ugly, annoying head during the sleep-deprived days of third year anesthesia residency and ICU call nights. Before that, I remember its presence while frantically finishing laboratory experiments and writing my …
Childbirth: The Ultimate Exercise in Going with the Flow
Witness the transformation I was 37 weeks pregnant and had just completed a busy Monday in the OR, my last scheduled shift before maternity leave. After consulting both my regular OB and a high-risk OB specialist, the plan was to induce labor at 38 weeks due to my significant swelling and …
Childbirth: The Ultimate Exercise in Going with the FlowRead More
When Do You Disclose a Pregnancy?
I was 5 weeks pregnant and working in the spine room. Just as I finished my intubation and secured the airway, I turned to set the ventilator and administer some important medications. The surgery fellow started to position the fluoroscope near the patient's cervical spine, about a foot away from …
Think of it as one, long pregnancy
I knew he meant well, but he could not and would not ever really understand. "Think of it was one, long pregnancy," he said. "I mean, all those eggs were all taken out of you on the same day and fertilized on the same day..." "So it's like they're all part of the same process." At first …
What IVF Taught Me
I recently completed my first cycle of in vitro fertilization (IVF). It is a long and detailed process, requiring lots of resources, money, time, and patience. The first stage involves, ironically, taking oral contraceptives to reset the hormone milieu and force all eggs into a senescent, follicular …
Uncovering Family
Something shifted a few years ago that changed our minds about having children from eh?? to yay!!... and turning 35 in the midst of a stressful residency and irregular, scanty periods lead me to the GYN's office to discuss fertility. That started the slowly rolling snowball that was the diagnosis of …
